Five X-Factors: Heat vs Celtics

Jimmy Butler and Jayson Tatum is obviously the stars of the show. Specifics of the coaching war that happens in a seven-game series are a little deeper than that. Here's my five keys to the series.

Kemba Walker

He has to score. Marcus Smart played the best series of his life last round; he’s going to come back to earth. If Kemba doesn’t put pressure on his matchup, it allows the Heat to get more Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, and Kendrick Nunn out there. That’s going to help the Miami offense significantly, and make the Celtics exert more energy on defense. They’ll have to make the then-requisite counter moves. This is all a big chess match of who has to blink first, and this wrinkle of the gameplan is likely where the first move lies for Spoelstra or Stevens.

Can Miami play enough defense or enough offense?

Jimmy Butler is one of the best two-way players in the world. Bam Adebayo is another. But after that, the Heat players are one-dimensional. Herro, Robinson, Nunn, and Goran Dragic are mostly offense. Jae Crowder and Andre Iguodala are mostly defense. That’s a super-deep top eight. But the Celtics spread out their scoring more than any team in the league. There are no weak links to hide a defender on. Kemba, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and a wild card are their go-to five. Smart just played the best offensive basketball of his life. Gordon Hayward is due to return this series.

The Heat’s most common lineup in the playoffs by more than three times any other is Dragic-Robinson-Jimmy-Crowder-Bam. The second-most is the same with Herro for Robinson.

Something is going to give with those lineups hammering against the Celtics’ favorites. Either the interchanged shooters make up for their mismatch with consistent grit and enough offense to cancel it out, or the Celtics pick on them so much that they become unplayable.

If it’s the latter, Miami’s chess move is a lot of Andre Iguodala and his space killing. This would incentivize Miami taking advantage of his playmaking as his only useful offensive skill, grinding the pace to a crawl. The Heat are great in the half-court, but the Celtics are super switchable and disciplined.

If it’s the former, we’re in for a shootout, at least until the next chess move. Iguodala could still get out there to mark up whichever Celtic is the hottest scorer of the night, saving Jimmy Butler energy for offense. But the real question will be who outpaces who, and whether the Heat can score enough to keep up with Boston’s stars. Who knows? A Kelly Olynyk revenge series could be in the works. Miami might use his gravity to open up the Butler-Bam two-man game, and attempt to punish Boston’s lack of rim protection. (Yes, I know Daniel Theis plays good defense, but he can’t be Rudy Gobert mixed with Robert Covington for 48 minutes straight).

Grant Williams and Robert Williams

It’s safe to say we’ve seen the end of Enes Kanter. His dead last rim protection in the NBA does not make up for his rebounding and play-finishing scoring.

Grant is a 6’6” hyper-intelligent rookie out of Tennessee. He got some key minutes in the Raptors series, including closing out Game 7. He’s a stout power forward, and his height is the only thing keeping him back from being a super-versatile, modern defensive center. His offensive game is cerebral and low maintenance.

Robert Williams aka Time Lord is a super athlete sophomore. He’s an energy guy that is a legit shot blocker and good rebounder, but not a complete rim protector or defender. His offense is tethered to the rim.

The Heat like to chuck up threes, and hit them at ridiculous clips. They were second in the NBA in the regular season in three-point percentage, and then improved that figure in the playoffs. But then their two best players, Jimmy and Bam, score almost entirely inside the arc. It’s a tough balance defending that, and there’s no telling yet which big will spell Theis.

Whichever one Brad Stevens throws out there, the Heat will see what they’re made of right away.

So my bet is on Grant over Robert. He’s much less conventional - they can definitely play together if Stevens gets that bold, or he can play next to Theis if the Heat get big - but Grant has less holes to attack in his game. His biggest weakness is rebounding. Otherwise, Miami shouldn’t be able to make him overly uncomfortable.

Time Lord’s weaknesses are exploitable if the Heat switch him onto a quicker, perimeter offensive player. On the other end, they would sag off of him and then swarm to make him make decisions. Robert Williams as a focal point on offense is exactly what the Heat want.

If it is Grant, the Celtics risk getting deleted on the boards. They’ll have to stay home to secure the defensive rebound more, and this will slow down the pace. Both teams play near identical paces (Miami 12th and Boston 13th in the playoffs).

But, a slow-pace slugfest favors the Heat, who have less firepower on offense. With less possessions, Boston has less volume to use their roster’s scoring advantage to distance themselves. The Celtics are one of the best transition defenses in the NBA. The Heat are third in the NBA in half-court offense, according to Cleaning the Glass. They boast a higher eFG%, TS%, and better rebounding percentages.

Jaylen Brown vs Herro/Robinson/Dragic

The third scoring options. Jaylen is easily the best player here. All four of them will be asked to do a lot on defense. The Heat trio probably less, because they are less good defenders and derive more value from their scoring. In other words, if they don’t score, they’re total flops.

The Celtics have more reliable top two scoring options in Tatum and Kemba. This means opposing teams will throw more at them to slow them down. Toronto bottled up Kemba and put him on a shelf to great success. If they were any more successful, they would be playing Tuesday. Miami locked Giannis Antetokounmpo up and threw away the key all the way to a near sweep, and Tatum (loosely) plays his same position. So if Tatum or Kemba is off, it is dire that Jaylen be on.

The Heat’s two top scoring options, Jimmy and Bam, are worse scorers and better playmakers than Boston’s duo. This means holding them to 10 or 15 points is less likely to stop their offense. While you can’t let Jimmy go for 40, you absolutely cannot hold him to 8 and let the aforementioned trio combine for 55. Similarly, Bam can get 18 rebounds and 10 assists to those shooters if he decides to not take shots.

It sounds like “pick your poison,” but it’s much more “find your balance.” You pack the paint against the two All-Stars and dare them to shoot, and then go all perimeter on the other three. We could see some calculated zone from Boston in the minutes that Miami’s big two shares with three shooters.

Gordon Hayward

A truly algebraic x-factor. We don’t know what x is. Hayward could swing this whole series, the way Mike Conley almost did for Utah in round one, or the way Danuel House’s absence did in the Rockets-Lakers series. He’s much better than either of those two.

Hayward had really been rounding into his Jazz form before spraining his ankle, putting up his best season as a Celtic. He posted 17.5 / 6.7 / 4.1 on 50.0 / 38.3 / 85.5 shooting splits. That’s versatility. Wing is the most important position in basketball. The Celtics drafted Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum at number 3 in back-to-back drafts, and then signed Hayward for 4 years at $128 million. They comprise the most fearsome wing trio in the NBA. When they’re all playing unselfish, it’s symphonic.

If Hayward comes back at 90% speed, which is far from a sure thing, the series is over. The talent gap is too big at that point.

If Hayward comes back too soon, he’s a liability. He’ll be thrown into the fire because it’s the f***in’ Eastern Conference Finals, and it could cost the Celtics a game.

The Celtics are not the Bucks. The Heat can’t do everything to take away Jayson Tatum like Giannis and make the other guys do too much. The Celtics have too many threats.

The Heat are not the Raptors. The Celtics can’t dare them to shoot threes and swallow up their talented big man. The Heat will hit every open three and then some. Bam is better and more versatile than Pascal Siakam.

Even with less starpower than the games happening in the West, this series could be the best of the playoffs so far. These teams have so many players capable of big plays and handling big matchups. They play such gorgeous basketball. They’re led by two of the best coaches alive. They both found their perfect stride in the playoffs. Here comes a beautiful collision.

Image credit: Aaron Booth, Pinterest.